


Simple Design

by aguantare



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 07:07:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aguantare/pseuds/aguantare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He goes home, and the first thing he does is strip off his training kit, ball it up and throw it in his laundry hamper. It’s the first time, ever, that he doesn’t want the red and white on his shoulders, and he knows it’s kind of childish and immature, but right now he doesn’t really care. Football AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple Design

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: don't know them, don't own them, don't sue me

It hurts. Niall takes the news with a nod and a shaky smile, but his chest feels tight, his throat even tighter, and when the Academy Director asks him if he’s alright, all he can do is nod again.

It hurts even worse when he has to walk out of the Director’s office and look at the other boy’s expectant, upturned faces. They all received good news. He’s the only one who didn’t. He tries for a smile, but he can feel his eyes burning, and even as his vision blurs, he can see their faces falling in realization. He hates that he can’t just be happy for them, because he knew this was a possibility, they all did. But the rejection, the failure is a little too raw right now, a little too sharp.

“Well boys,” he says. His throat aches with the strain of keeping his voice steady. “Good luck.”

He moves for the door, doesn’t stop even when he hears Liam and Harry calling his name.

Somehow, he manages to make it all the way home before he breaks down and actually cries.

-

The thing is, Niall always knew he was one of the ones who was going to be on the bubble when it came time for the club to offer them full contracts. He didn’t score game-winning goals from impossible angles like Zayn did. He didn’t set up those goals with pinpoint through balls and hyper-accurate crosses like Liam and Louis. He didn’t make crunching, game-saving tackles on the best strikers in the world like Harry did. He’s worked hard, demanded everything of himself and more, and he’s been playing some of the best football of his life recently. Nothing flashy, nothing that would get him man of the match, but he’s been consistent and confident, and he’d honestly thought he’d had a chance.

In the end though, even his best, his everything wasn’t good enough.

And now—now he just feels lost.

He goes home, and the first thing he does is strip off his training kit, ball it up and throw it in his laundry hamper. It’s the first time, ever, that he doesn’t want the red and white on his shoulders, and he knows it’s kind of childish and immature, but right now he doesn’t really care. As he pulls on some sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt, he wonders where the other boys are. Out celebrating, he supposes.

Away from their wide, pitying eyes, he can reconcile his own choking disappointment with his genuine happiness for their success. They deserve it. He knows that. They’re incredible footballers, and this is just the next step in their careers, the next step towards the recognition that they all deserve.

So what if they were all supposed to take that step together. So what if they’re going to move on without him, be successful without him, win trophies without him. So what. He wasn’t good enough. End of. They can’t all make it. The fact that four out of the five of them did is actually pretty amazing, if he thinks about it.

But. Right now, he doesn’t want to think about it. He’s happy for them, and now he just wants to forget. Forget that he ever dreamed about playing for one of the best clubs in the world. Forget he ever dreamed about winning trophies with four of his best friends. Forget that this was all he ever wanted.

-

Four beers and a few shots of vodka later, he’s sprawled out on his sofa, some stupid, brainless action movie on the TV, too loud and too bright, but at least it keeps him from thinking too hard. He’s contemplating getting up and going to the kitchen for another beer, but it seems kind of far, and he’s pretty comfortable where he is.

At first he thinks he imagines the knock on his door. Wishful thinking, he supposes. He doesn’t usually get morose when he’s drunk, but he figure’s tonight’s an exception.

Another knock at the door, and this time he knows he didn’t imagine it. He debates getting up to answer it, then decides not to. Whoever it is, they can come back later.

A few seconds pass. Then there’s some scuffling, a click of the lock, and the front door of his flat swings open. Niall blinks, his reaction time dulled considerably by the alcohol in his system, and then he remembers, oh yeah. He gave Zayn a key ages ago. Back when he first moved into this place, and they thought this was just the beginning, for all of them.

“Hey.” Zayn’s voice is quiet, but not hesitant. “Can I come in?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” It comes out more belligerent than Niall means for it to, but just seeing Zayn there is enough to make the rawness come into focus again, and anger seems like the best alternative to letting the hurt and disappointment get their teeth into him again.

“I can leave, if you want.” Zayn isn’t one to play games when it comes to what someone else wants, and Niall feels bad for trying to make him.

“No. Sorry. I’m just.”

He doesn’t finish that sentence. He hears Zayn close the front door, walk into the living room, and then he appears around the far end of the sofa. He’s wearing dark jeans and a dark blue, button down shirt, and Niall realizes he’s come here from being out, no doubt with the other boys. The hurt stabs, sharp and sudden in his chest, and he opens his mouth to snap that he doesn’t need—

“I’m not here to pity you.”

Niall shuts his mouth. He forgot. Zayn can be fucking perceptive when he needs to be. He watches as Zayn looks over the empty bottles and the half-empty handle of vodka with the shot glass lying on its side next to it.

“Don’t need to watch my drinking anymore,” Niall comments after a moment, and he can’t really hide the bitterness in his voice. Zayn huffs out a breath and walks over to the couch, hands in his pockets. After a second he reaches for the remote, turns the TV off.

“I’m not here to lecture you either,” he says, sitting down on the edge of the sofa. He’s lean and solid against Niall’s side, still a little bit of the lanky kid left over from when they first broke into the reserves together, but fast filling out, and Niall knows from playing against him that Zayn is anything but a pushover when he’s got the ball at his feet.

“Hey.” Zayn leans over him, rests a warm hand on his shoulder. His eyes are warm too, and Niall remembers how, the first time he met Zayn, he thought he was going to be all coldness and hard edges, killer striker mentality, right to the core. It’s kind of funny how wrong he was. For a few seconds, Niall can almost smile at that fact, because it’s hilarious, now, to think that there’s anything cold or aloof or jaded about Zayn.

Then he remembers how, two days ago, he was thinking about how amazing it was going to be to be out there, on the pitch with him when he scored the winning goal in the dying minutes of the Champions League final.

“Hey.” Zayn’s voice is quieter now, and must see his expression change, because he moves his hand to Niall’s face, and Niall realizes belatedly that his cheeks are wet again. He jerks away, embarrassed, because jesus, he’s not going to cry again and especially not in front of Zayn, and he starts to get up because he just needs to get up and do something to distract himself.

Next thing he knows he’s being pressed back into the cushions, arms around his back, Zayn’s chin digging into his shoulder, and it hits him, hard, that Zayn’s doing it on purpose, giving him at least the façade of not being watched, and he just can’t fucking deal with the fact that Zayn knows him so well, better than he knows himself probably.

“Fuck,” he mutters, pressing his face into Zayn’s shoulder. His cheeks are burning, but he exhales a shaky breath and stops trying to fight the welling in his eyes and his throat and his chest.

Zayn doesn’t try to tell him it’s okay, doesn’t try to comfort him with words, and Niall appreciates that. It’s—not nice, exactly, to be drunkenly crying his eyes out on his best friend’s shoulder after he’s just failed at the one thing he thought he was maybe actually good at—but it’s better than being alone. He thinks that deep down inside, he’s maybe really grateful to Zayn for this.

When he’s managed to calm himself down to just snuffling and the occasional hitched breath, Zayn pulls back, settles himself into a slightly awkward cross-legged position at the edge of the couch, and eyes Niall with a slightly downturned mouth. Niall’s eyes feel swollen and he knows his face is probably all blotchy and ugly, but he doesn’t feel quite as crushingly disappointed as he did before.

“Sorry,” he mutters thickly, reaching up to wipe his face roughly with his sleeve, “Your shirt’s probably really gross now.” Zayn shrugs.

“It’ll wash,” he replies.

Silence.

Niall sniffs, reaches out and toys with the hem of Zayn’s shirt, pretends to be really focused on his fingers.

“I just really wanted the chance, you know?” he says, without looking up, “I wanted to have a chance to prove myself.”

Pause.

“I mean, everyone has dreams, right? We all want to be Scholes or Gerrard or Rooney,” he continues, still worrying the hem between his fingers, “But like, I just wanted to be on the pitch with you and Liam and Louis and Harry. Like, my dream wasn’t to score a game winner. I just wanted to—“ his breath hitches and his voice cracks a little, “--be there.”

Niall feels Zayn’s hand close over his own, stopping his movements.

“You might still be,” Zayn says firmly.

“Yeah,” Niall acknowledges after a second or so, “Maybe if I’m lucky they’ll pass me off on a Championship team and in a couple years we’ll meet you guys in the League Cup.”

Zayn shakes his head and squeezes Niall’s hand until Niall looks at him.

“The first time I saw you play with the Reserves, I turned to Louis and I told him you were going to be through to the first team before any of the rest of us,” he says. Niall frowns a little. He remembers his first Reserves game. It was nothing special.

“How’d you figure that one?

Zayn shrugs, smiles a little.

“You worked harder than anyone out there. Lou and I both picked up our work ethic after that. Figured we had to if we wanted to try and keep up with you.”

Niall tries for a smile, thinks it probably comes out more like a grimace.

“Yeah well, look where it got me.”

Zayn’s smile fades, and he squeezes Niall’s hand again.

“My point is,” he says, “You didn’t just get this far on dumb luck or raw talent. Of all the people that can get through this…I think you’re the only one out of the five of us who’s got the guts to actually do it.”

Niall would make fun of Zayn for being sappy, if he wasn’t trying to swallow the sudden lump in his throat.

“Love you, mate,” he says, and it doesn’t come out quite as jokingly as he means it too, but Zayn just quirks a little smile and leans over, pecks a quick kiss to his forehead.

“Come on,” he says, patting Niall’s cheek, “Let’s get you cleaned up. You’re a mess.”

-

Niall wakes up the next morning to the buzzing of his mobile on the coffee table by the couch. It’s annoyingly loud, and Niall’s got a little bit of a hangover, but he’s more distracted by Zayn’s warm, sleep-heavy weight along his side. He knows from hotel stays for away matches that Zayn sleeps like the dead, but he still winces a little as he edges away from Zayn to reach for his phone. He glances at the caller ID.

And freezes.

It’s the club.

He takes a deep breath to calm his suddenly racing heart, and hits the answer key.

“Mr. Horan?”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Horan, the Academy Director would like to speak with you about your contract situation. Would you be able to come down to the training ground this morning?”

Niall kind of blanks out for a second, because what?

“Mr. Horan?”

“Uh yeah, yeah, sure. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

-

Zayn is sitting in the waiting room outside the Director’s office when Niall comes bounding out, all brightness and happiness and unbridled joy, belated recipient of a professional contract after the Director’s reconsideration. Zayn hugs him hard, squeezes the back of his neck in congratulations, and resists the urge to kiss his smiling mouth.

Because football makes Niall happy. And if football makes him happy, then that’s what Zayn wants him to have.

Even if it means he can never have Niall.


End file.
